A Journey Through Education with David Gomez

David Gomez: [00:00:00] We’re trying to get these kids who are coming from other countries, learning a new language, learning a new environment, learning a new school system, learning a new banking, shopping, playground. Everything’s new to them. But when they go to get a job, what do we make people do? When seeking a job, you have to go through an interview.

Well, it’s not a silent interview. You don’t sit there and stare at each other. You have to speak. If everyone is not giving their kids this access to practice speaking, then we’re doing our kids a disservice. 

Justin Hewett: Hey everybody. Welcome to the ML chat podcast. My name is Justin Hewett. I’m here with my cohost, 

Mandi Morris: Mandi Morris, 

Justin Hewett: and we just had the best conversation with David Gomez.

Dave Gomez is the equity director in Granite school district, and he has a lot of energy. He is so fun. My [00:01:00] favorite part of this conversation is the message that Dave continues to talk about really in every meeting that I’ve ever been in with him, which is what’s our story. And what’s our connection, meaning what is the story that you and I both bring to this work or to this conversation or to this meeting or whatever it might be.

And what’s our connection. And I just love his ability to build bridges, build on each other’s shared experiences, and some of those types of things. And I just. I love that perspective, Mandi. 

Mandi Morris: And Dave is such a creative outside of the box thinker, and it makes his approach to engaging students and engaging educators to the work really fun.

He’s such a dynamic person. And I think this podcast episode is just a lot of fun getting to know Dave. 

Justin Hewett: Yeah. If you’re looking to be re energized about the work, come and listen to Dave Gomez. He’s in his book. 30th year in education, and yet he’s got a lot of that first year energy. [00:02:00] I feel like you are going to love and really enjoy this conversation with Dave Gomez.

Let’s go into it. David Gomez started out in education as a bilingual tutor, teaching English to students from other countries. He became a fourth and fifth grade classroom teacher before then starting his administrative experience. He worked at the Utah state office of education as the director over migrant education.

And as a specialist for Title I programs. David served as the principal of four different elementary schools before going on to serve as the interim superintendent in the Park City School District. He is now in his 30th year of service and is currently serving as the director of equity for the Granite School District.

Dave earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah, his teaching degree from Utah State University, And his master’s in admin endorsement from the University of Utah, Dave Gomez. Welcome to the ML chat podcast. We are so excited you’re here. Thanks for being here. 

David Gomez: Yeah, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.[00:03:00] 

Justin Hewett: Oh man. Dave and I go way back. Dave, how did you get started in this work? I know that, it’ll be fun for everyone to hear a little bit about, the legacy in your family. What brought you into, the work of serving our multilingual students? 

David Gomez: Yeah I think, Justin, it starts way back for me.

I think when you unpack your own story. And you look at now as I’m looking back on how that started, I got to talk about how I really came to the United States right through El Paso, Texas. My grandparents came across the border on a migrant visa. They were given visas to farm workers to come over and work on the fields, right?

Because they needed people to work on the beet farms and all that. And so that’s really where this story starts. And so then my dad was born and raised here. He went into education himself. And I don’t know that I really had an interest in education when I was. going [00:04:00] through my schooling, but at some point when I started to look for jobs, that’s how all this journey started.

But the emphasis really is really cool because in your bio, you mentioned that I was the director of migrant education, right? What a full circle that is. My grandparents came over the border. Through El Paso and to work as migrant farm workers. And I became the director of migrant education for the state of Utah.

And when you look at your life, you have a lot of these fun circles that end up coming back. And so when you asked where did it all start? That’s really where it started. 

Justin Hewett: You had no interest in getting into education as a kid and you’re growing up. I want to know how that happened then. Where did that start?

Did your dad say, Hey, Dave, I need some help over here at this school, come and help me out. Unpack that. I want to hear that story. 

David Gomez: Yeah. I came back from a service for. My church organization that I was a [00:05:00] part of spent two years serving that church organization. And when I came back, I had to look for a job.

And what ended up happening was there was a bilingual tutor job that worked with my schooling, right? Because I was going to school at night. And my dad was the one that said, you should go do this because you speak Spanish. You know how to serve people. So I did. I went and applied for the bilingual tutor in Jordan School District.

And I remember walking into the building and they said, you’re going to go help these five kids over here from Iran. And I said I don’t speak Arabic. They said, it doesn’t matter. And I said how am I supposed to teach English to them? And he handed me a box and said all the stuff he needs right in this box.

So see ya. Hey, let us know how it’s going to go. And that’s how it started. I went out there and taught three kids from Iran. They couldn’t [00:06:00] speak English or Spanish. I couldn’t speak Arabic and away we went and they taught me words from their language and taught me things from their country and vice versa.

And it really, I don’t know that it really was a job for me, but they were paying me, which was great, but it was just a real fun experience. And that’s how the journey started. And then somebody said. Why don’t you become a teacher? You’re pretty good tutor. Okay. So I went into teaching, got my degree, got out, went and taught, and then somebody said, why don’t you get your admin degree?

You could probably be a pretty good administrator. And then at that time I looked at the teacher salary and I was starting a family and I was like, Ooh, I can’t build a family on that salary. Went in, got my admin, and then somebody said, why don’t you go out and be a principal? You always have those people that I keep saying somebody said, right?

Those are your mentors throughout life that kind of throw these [00:07:00] pieces out to you to try different things. And that mentor of mine really helped me to Get on this path of administration. And that’s how it was, somebody at one point said, why don’t you become the, a principal of a dual language school, which I did, nobody said for me to become an interim superintendent.

That just happened on a whim. And that’s a whole nother story, but wow, what a great experience I had just seeing that perspective for about six or 

Justin Hewett: seven months. The influence that your mentors had and helping guide and shape that direction. That’s fun to hear, Dave. I’m sure that you’ve played that role for a lot of others.

David Gomez: You got to give back Justin? And we all do that. Hopefully I have done that. It is pretty cool. As of recently, one of our specialists who actually I went over to Mexico to hire teachers to come over here because we were short at that time on dual language teachers, right? I go over there, I interview her, she [00:08:00] comes back, she goes to the school, teaches, she gets married here, starts to have a family, stays here, and then 10 15 years later, She’s one of my specialists and now was only with me for a year.

But now she’s now got accepted into the internship for administrator in Granite school district. When we talk about these circles, look how cool they are, right? Look how just. satisfying they can be. So that’s just another story that is interesting. 

Justin Hewett: That is so fun to hear. So Mandi, Dave was actually a principal at David Gorley Elementary, and that is a school that I went to as a little tyke back in the day I was in high school.

I went there for kindergarten, first grade, and I was in a second, third grade split class, but they are the home of the pandas. And Dave does redesign the logo for the pandas. So 

David Gomez: I did. Yes, I did. Because they had a, they had a [00:09:00] juvenile looking panda. And I was like, how fifth graders and sixth graders don’t want to put that t shirt on.

So we, we made it a bit more, useful for people across the board. I think they’re still using it today, but I haven’t checked it as of late. I didn’t know you went there, Justin. That’s awesome. 

Justin Hewett: Yeah. Isn’t that fun? Mandi, I’m guessing that some of Dave’s early experience of, getting into education resonated with you and some of the work that you did, when you were first getting started.

Mandi Morris: Yeah. I think what I love about your story is that it shows that. The path in education can be a winding path. Some people, they know from the time they’re kids, they want to be a teacher and they go to the teacher at college. And, but for a lot of people in education, the path isn’t that straight.

It’s more like I was in this other career and then I transitioned or I was at. And then, or they stumbled into it in one way or another, but I think what’s really incredible about your story is I love hearing you talk about the [00:10:00] full circles and how you’ve had these experiences that have been full circle.

It’s so neat to hear about the teacher programs that you guys had to bring teachers in internationally. We a lot of people we talked to have dual language programs, and we know that funding those teacher programs can be a challenge. I would love to just hear you unpack like a little bit about how did you land in that place to start bringing teachers internationally and what is there still a teacher shortage for?

Dually certified teachers. 

David Gomez: Yeah good point. Yeah, so how I landed that was this, and here’s the power of knowing two languages, right? We sometimes don’t push that enough, but if you’re bilingual, and we’ve got kids in our system now who are trilingual, we should be celebrating that. We should be looking at that and going, wow, what a skill base that Many don’t have right.

And I was lucky enough to have Spanish. I learned it at nine years old when my [00:11:00] father also served mission for a religious organization. And I went over there when I was nine. And so I then learned Spanish. In three years and understood now what the journey from going from one country to another and then coming back to that country and having to try to acclimate again is part of this story, right?

And so I know Spanish. So the first time I got hired back into Granite School District, there was a shortage of dual language teachers. Couldn’t find any here. There just weren’t any. So the superintendent asked the HR director to go to Mexico. And at the time, we were using two countries. We could have either gone to Spain or we could have gone to Mexico, which, by the way, folks, in a dual language program, so valuable for kids to hear different accents and words and get that world experience in languages, right?

Because Spanish. [00:12:00] is different in different countries. And it sounds different. And so in a dual language program, I think it’s very valuable that you get teachers that are from different countries, have different accents, use different words. I think that is such a valuable process in the dual language world that I know many will resonate with.

And so they asked us, they came to me, I was on the job about a week. Superintendent came to me and said, Hey, you’re going to go with the HR director. And I’m like, I don’t even know this job. I got nobody even told me I was assistant director, associate director in this same department that I’m now director of.

Okay. So I have an assistant. He said, you’re going to go over because the HR director doesn’t speak Spanish. So we go over there, Mexican consulate, Mexican government puts us up in a great hotel, we go through the series, it was in a really cool place, they took us to the pyramids, which I’d been to before as a child, but then now I [00:13:00] got an opportunity to see it as an adult, and then we got to go through the whole experience of the agave cactus, lots of usages for that.

And not just the one you’re thinking of, not the liquid, but there’s lots of other great stuff that come from the agave plant, just some cool things. So that was part of the wine and dine that the Mexican government did us. And so we came back with, I think, four really qualified teachers. And that’s how that journey started.

But had I not spoken Spanish, had my dad and my mom not said yes to going to another country so that I could learn not only Spanish, but now next my greatest love beyond my family is soccer. And I was a baseball kid. Grew up in the United States, man. You play baseball. I had Cubs. I still have my hats, but I go over there.

I learned a fantastic sport that I’m thoroughly involved with now. And [00:14:00] Justin knows that. And it’s just fun to be a coach and give back to these, 11 year olds and high school kids that I’ve worked with as well. So a lot to unpack there, Mandi, but that’s really the full story on that one.

Justin Hewett: And it’s fun to see, for the record, you love all types of soccer. I’ve seen you coaching, young, a young team of boy or a team of young boys. And then also. You’re getting on a plane every chance you get to go watch your Real Salt Lake go play and I did, I know that you love it all.

So it’s been fun to watch you cheer on your team through the years. Dave, before we go too far into this, I just realized like most people probably don’t know about the Granite School District and where you’re from and what, what do you do as an Ed Equity Director, right?

So maybe unpack that a little bit. Tell us a little bit about Granite School District and the students you serve, some of that work and then also what you do as the Ed Equity Director. 

David Gomez: It’s a decent sized district, 60, 000 kids. And so being the director of educational equity, which is probably going to be needing to be changed as this world [00:15:00] national look at equity and diversity and inclusion starts to come into districts.

I know people know what I’m talking about when I say that. We’re probably going to get a name change, but 60, 000 kids. Interesting, Justin, in our district, 20, 000 of them are multilingual learners. Wow. Out of that 20, 000 about 16, 000 are Latinos, Latinas. Okay, so Spanish is their primary first language. So big district with big demands, that’s only one portion.

So my charge is to make sure that our staff and our buildings know how to teach MLS, how to track MLS, how to, and when I say MLS, I’m talking multilingual learners. Some people use ELLs, alternative language, all those, it’s all the same person or identifying factor, right? And so that’s a big part of my job is doing [00:16:00] that.

But then I’m also the 504 coordinator for the district as well as the sexual harassment coordinator for the district. And so you put all those things together, we, we handle our refugee kids, which we have thousands of refugee kids coming into our district. Newcomers from all over the country.

We have Native American students that we need to track and make sure that we get graduated. And so it’s a big department, lot going on, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Let you be a part of many different circles. 

Mandi Morris: It feels like you’re really aware of a person’s story, where they come from, how that impacts them.

And, you’re very connected to your own story, like that full circle. That’s just so cool about your grandparents and being migrant workers here in the States those years ago. I wonder if you could share a little bit more about your refugee population that’s coming in, your newcomer population that’s [00:17:00] coming in.

A thousand, Third of your students are multilingual learners. What does it look like to really embrace that diversity of story and experience in such a big school district? 

David Gomez: Yeah. All the more reason to know your own story, so that you can make connections. With people when you hear their story, that’s the biggest piece here, right?

And that’s, we are going to be talking hopefully about flashlight at some point, but with that opportunity for people for kids to use their voice to tell their story through a platform like flashlight is. Really huge for us right now. And so that story is really amazing, right?

Is to hear how kids come over to our country and the trials and tribulations they have to go through just to make it into our classroom. And now once we start to listen to those stories, now we can start serving these kids. We have 115 languages that are spoken in our district. No, not all are huge in number, [00:18:00] right?

But we’ve got some languages that We can’t get interpretation or translations for. And so that’s, that becomes the hard part, right? Is then how do you serve these kids? And so we have a process where we are trying to build capacity in our schools and we call it our two mining project. It used to be a school where kids, refugee and newcomers would come in.

We would take them then bus them over to a certain site and we would try to. Teach them the school climate, our school, our United States school culture, what it looks like right in 10 days, and then we send it back to their school. and hope that was enough to get them going. We moved from that concept because we have more kids flooding into our district.

So we needed to do something different. And what we’re doing different now is we have liaisons or connectors that will go to a school, try to teach them that they [00:19:00] can indeed serve refugee kids, even if they don’t speak their language or newcomer kids. from all over the world, and here’s how you do it.

And so these guys are teaching the schools how to do it, and essentially giving them confidence to realize that, yeah, you may not be from their countries that they’re coming from, but you’re a human being, and you understand that stories and connections are huge. And you can start there and that’s how we begin to teach these kids.

Justin Hewett: I love how much you talk about that actually, about what’s your story, what’s our connection, right? I know I’ve heard you say that a few hundred times or so. And I love it and it resonates with me every single time and I love the repetition of it. But I guess I’ve never asked you this necessarily, but I would love to know why you feel like that is so important.

Why is it so important that we know each other’s stories or that you hear this student’s story and [00:20:00] find a connection? Why do you feel so strongly about that, Dave? 

David Gomez: Yeah, because, Justin, in anything that you’re doing, and we know this in education is we always talk about building relationships. And it is the single most effective manner on how we get kids learning is if they feel like someone cares about them, right?

Someone can connect with them. Building that relationship. It’s that way in education, it’s that way in business, it’s that way in sports, it’s that way, really, honestly, in your own family, right? You feel connected to your mom, you feel connected to your grandpa, which I’m blessed with three. I want to make that connection with my granddaughters.

I only have granddaughters. But each one of them has their own story that even I, as a grandpa, can connect with them. And then I can start to build those human connections which we [00:21:00] all want and we all need to succeed in this. Hard world, right? But it can be so beautiful if you take the time to learn about people.

You and I have a connection. We have many connections, not just soccer. And then I wish your son was on my team, but he chose another one, but that’s a whole nother podcast. 

Justin Hewett: We can have a lot of fun with that one. So it’s, I love hearing that, Dave. It’s interesting, right? Like it’s not necessarily something that I think is the most prevalent when we think about student achievement is building the relationship between the teachers and students.

But if you look at Hattie’s list, The teacher student relationship has a really high efficacy. It’s a really big deal. And I think it’s something that a lot of times we gloss over. It’s interesting when we started building Flashlight360, one of the things that one of my co founders used to say is, Emma used to say how it was all about changing the hearts and minds of teachers.

In part because [00:22:00] many of our teachers Didn’t have a tool, didn’t have a way, didn’t feel like they had the time to be able to really understand their students and understand what their story was. And if you don’t know what their story is, you can’t have that connection. And students know that they know if you’re not connected to them, if you’re not really invested in them.

And if you look at really the challenge that we’re facing across the country of our students who are becoming. What I think a lot of times is called long term English learners, right? Very experienced English learners that have been in our systems for all these years. Why have they not progressed out?

I’m sure there’s a number of different reasons, but I think one of the big ones is maybe they haven’t had somebody that really sat down with them and showed them their path forward. This is how you get out of here. This is what you need to do. This is how I can help you. And that only comes if you have that relationship, if you know their story, if you care about them, 

David Gomez: Yeah, it’s huge, Justin, and that’s what attracted me to the platform, the, flashlight as a progress monitoring, as a [00:23:00] vehicle to, because how do you get someone’s story?

You need them to express it in some way. So they either need to speak about it or they need to write about it. Or they need to draw pictures about it, but how are you going to get to know somebody if you don’t do that? And so that’s what attracted me in the first place to flashlight learning is that is where it’s a mechanism for being able to extract that information.

And then at the same time, you get to see their levels, right? 

Justin Hewett: Let’s hop into it, Dave, just real quick. Maybe tell us a little bit about how in granite school district you’re using. Flashlight 360. Tell us a little bit about what the service is for you guys and how you’re using it across the district.

David Gomez: I mean in the first place You need to know that it’s a progress monitoring. That’s what, that’s how we view it in Granite School District. A way for a teacher or not even a teacher, could be a counselor, could be a aide, could be administrator, could be anyone you want in the building, [00:24:00] can use this as a progress monitor.

Meaning how do I know that this student learned this concept Or didn’t learn this concept and at what level. So that’s first and foremost, that’s how we look at it in Granite is that kind of a tool, right? And so now we started off with doing the B O Y, M O Y, and E O Y, so a benchmark, right? We have those benchmarks set up.

But what we’re trying to push this year, and we dabbled in it last year, is to have schools use it more frequently. Because my thought process, Justin, was if we can get the kids to practice speaking, help them to get better at it, then practice some more, we do that same thing with writing, then when they go to take the, ours is the WIDA test, but others use other tests throughout the country, but it’s the same concepts, right?

Our feeling is that they’ll do better. [00:25:00] And guess what we found out? We were right. We had schools that were using it weekly. We had other schools that were using it monthly. And we allowed it. We allowed that freedom, right? We had other schools that only did the benchmark three times. What we found is that it didn’t matter.

The score still went up. Now, the more you used it, the more of these kids were given the opportunity to express themselves by speaking and by writing. Then when they came to take the one yearly test that we base so much on, which is ridiculous. What we found is that if they can practice, and isn’t that life?

If you give opportunity to practice something and when someone goes to take the test. They’re going to do better at it. Now, here’s the kicker. What we didn’t know was that our listening scores were going to go up too. That was amazing. I’m talking about jumps that if I don’t have a [00:26:00] graph and this is, we can’t show it on here, but I’ve shown you the jumps that we’ve had.

And so that, that’s how we’ve approached it in Granite District as this tool to give kids an opportunity to practice. So that’s how we’re using flashlight and we’re going to go into our second year, which I feel is going to be way better of full implementation because we now we’re jumping in dual language instruction wants to now use it as part of their process and that’s going to be really cool.

Justin Hewett: Yeah, that is cool. It’s neat to see it expand through the district, right? You started in, I think in four schools. You started it, at your elementary and then went to four schools. And then we went to a lot more a few years ago and then to see it continue to expand. And for those of you that are unfamiliar with flashlight 360, as Dave says, it’s a progress monitoring tool for speaking and writing is what it’s focused on the most.

But it was really interesting in the study that We did in the Granite School District [00:27:00] with John Hopkins University did a study, I guess I should say, and they found that it had a significant impact not only on speaking and writing, but also on listening now, which is what you’re talking to Dave.

And that was an unexpected by product to some degree. We weren’t necessarily expecting that, but we should. Like languages, it’s all connected. All the different domains really do feed each other and build on top of each other. And speaking is really that bedrock domain when it comes down to it that is so connected to writing, so connected to listening, and then so connected also to reading, frankly.

David Gomez: Justin, if I can jump in real quick, because you hit something that was really important. We’re trying to get these kids, You’re coming from other countries, learning a new language, learning a new environment, learning a new school system, learning a new banking, shopping, playground, everything’s new to them.

When they go to get a job, what do we make people do when seeking a job? You have to go [00:28:00] through an interview. It’s not a silent interview. You don’t sit there and stare at each other. You have to speak. If everyone is not giving their Kids this access to practice speaking, then we’re doing our kids a disservice on the same charge writing.

You go in and what do you have to fill out? You have to fill out an application. Sometimes it’s online. So what are we doing here? Are we really getting these kids ready to move on and get jobs, become part of our communities and our systems? I hope so, but we got to help them. We got to give them access and support.

And I feel like that’s what this is doing. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah, Dave, something that your school district is getting ready to do is a scope and sequence for science standards that I’m really excited about, and you’d mentioned progress monitoring, and this is really about formative assessment. In addition to the progress monitoring that you’re doing with Flashlight 360.[00:29:00] 

So it’s an opportunity to align those learning objectives and language objectives, and you’re doing that for 6th through 10th grade which is just a really exciting project. I’d love to hear you talk a little bit about what does it look like in a school district with as many MLs as you have to align Language through content, and how are you going through going back to shifting the hearts and minds?

What does it look like to shift the hearts and minds of teachers that were all responsible for teaching language? 

David Gomez: Yeah, is that gonna be fun, Mandi? That is gonna be a fun project. I’m very excited. I’m just so excited about it, but it attaches to our proficiency based learning. That concept of, hey, I’m going to teach you something and then I’m going to get, I’m going to allow you multiple ways to show me that you’ve mastered it.

That, that’s the whole concept, right? Is that PBL. And so that fits with our district because that’s how we, our thought process is that direction. And so imagine [00:30:00] when we have science teachers, right? Who want to know if those three students from Iran that I helped who I think sometimes we think that just because they come from another country that they don’t come with intelligence.

Sometimes we do think that because they’re not maybe speaking our language. That’s not true. These kids come from other countries with very Good teaching with teachers who have taught them well, and they just don’t know how to get that out of their mind into a system that you’re asking for output right to show mastery.

And so isn’t that going to be cool to start to get? And, last year we had It’s not just science, but imagine if you did that in math and now you put up a math problem and these refugee newcomer MLs are having to not only solve it, but they have to talk about it on how they solved it. That’s right.

In comes flashlight or, whatever device, other device you want to do, but in comes flashlight to provide that [00:31:00] platform. And that’s what we gravitated to. And that’s what we saw, right? With your, Help and specialist help here in my department. We were looking. We could use this as a exit ticket option, right?

Kind of a deal that everybody uses. And so we’re just jumping on things that are already there. But that’s where flashlight jumped in for us and said, Hey, we can do this. So I’m excited to get into that. 

Mandi Morris: I’m really excited about it as well. And it’s neat. You have a great setup at Granite because you have liaisons, as you mentioned before, in different buildings that can be a touch point for implementing that change for language through content.

So it’s going to be really cool to see that shift and watch that shift. And I know a lot of schools are thinking about how do I reinforce language through content? How do I. Help spread the message that all teachers are responsible for language instruction. 

David Gomez: Yeah. But how cool is it? Tell me about, you put up a picture of the water cycle and now [00:32:00] kids have to talk about it in whatever language, by the way, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, whatever.

And then you got to write about it. Now we’re enforcing and encouraging kids to show us what you know. 

Justin Hewett: That’s right. Do it 

David Gomez: in a non threatening way. Okay, hey, your first try at it didn’t sound very good to you, and kids know this, folks. They’re doing it on their phones all the time. My daughter’s always getting her phone out and doing some weird thing, taking a picture.

Oh, that wasn’t good. We do it again. Oh, how are you feeling 20 minutes late? You all know what I’m talking about. So why don’t we use that in education? Here you go. That’s what we’re going to do, and we’re going to allow them to take it over and over, and they self learn, okay? And they go, ooh, that didn’t sound very good.

I know a little bit more. I forgot to put it in this way. You get three chances in Flashlight. More. In one setting, you get three chances, so that’s awesome. 

Justin Hewett: It is awesome. And one of my favorite parts is when we were first starting to build it, we [00:33:00] really wanted it to be assets based, meaning that it’s all about the language the student brings, right?

So there’s no wrong answers because it’s them showing what they know and what they have. And if they don’t have everything, that’s okay. Show us what you’ve got and then show us what you have in English. And then if you want to show us what you have in Spanish too, go ahead and we can build on that.

Dave, I want you to talk a little bit about the, Is it the cultural pathway that we’re calling it? You’ve got to tell everybody about that a little bit and about some of those experiences that you’ve had Within your district and being able to share stories and talk about that if you don’t mind 

David Gomez: Yeah we saw the product right in the platform and I think a bunch of us were sitting around going how do we add because part of my job is to add this cultural sensitivity piece in our district.

And how do you do that? That’s a very tough thing to broach and to talk about, especially in today’s climate, political climate that we have. And so we went back to the, what’s your story what’s your connection. And then we, and then, we sat [00:34:00] around with some flashlight folks and said, Hey, can we put pictures up that it would encourage kids to talk about their, for example, journey to the United States?

or journey to a different place, right? One school to the next and then start to gather that so that teachers could have it at the beginning of the year, in the middle of the year, throughout the year, and they could listen to it on their own time because time is always a subject that comes up with teachers that they just don’t have enough of, right?

And they don’t have enough time during the day, Justin, to sit there and connect with kids all the time. Flashlight records this. Isn’t that neat? It’s a recording. You can listen to it any time. And that’s what our thinking was. And so we, we went on this quest to start to create this pathway of pictures that would ask kids cool things.

What’s your journey? [00:35:00] What traditions do you have in your family? How neat is that going to be for us to learn about traditions? I can tell you one tradition for me when I was little is that we always had a piñata at the birthday parties. My parents wanted to hold on to our Mexican culture and still keep our American, our European descent culture and they did that.

They combined the two, right? So we had piñatas and so how cool would that be to share my story about the piñata parties? I remember doing many of those. So I got too big and then, the pinatas turned into flying objects through the house and that’s right Breaking other things and so they stopped that but that’s what we’re gonna get from kids, right?

Yeah, what’s your? That’s how you start the conversation. And now my hope is that as these Schools and teachers are giving kids this opportunity to share [00:36:00] something about them that they themselves will now start to learn about other cultures and other countries and other beliefs and understand that.

Hey, we all have similarities. We all do. We may look different, sound different, act different, but we all have similarities in how we’re trying to navigate through this world, right? And Justin, what about parents? We haven’t even talked about the option for parents that we’re going to use Flashlight in our English learning classes in our parent centers.

How cool is that going to be? No one’s done that. Folks, you got to get on because I, and then where are you going to get that? Alright, you probably get it somewhere else. I’m just saying we’re using flashlight because it’s there and it’s useful. It’s part of what we’re doing. But what about stories of parents?

And then what about them using the same product that kids are using in their buildings? Can you just see how my wheels start rolling every time we You [00:37:00] And then I’m like, yeah, why didn’t we do this yesterday? 

Justin Hewett: I love it. I love all the connections and the, it’s neat to be able to use it in a variety of different places and do some of that and allow people to tell their story.

And I love how committed you are to not only sharing your story, but hearing other people’s stories and giving them a chance to be able to share that as far as the cultural pathways. I know that. You’ve ended up eliciting language from some students that have shared their story in a way that they probably wouldn’t have otherwise, right?

I think that in many respects, it ends up being a personal thing where these students are telling their story, telling what they’ve gone through, And it’s pretty meaningful and significant and I think it really resonates with the teachers. If you don’t mind, I’d love for you to tell us maybe a little bit about one of these or a couple of these and the impact they’ve had either on the teacher or within the Granite School District or however you think about that.

David Gomez: Yeah, one that comes to mind is she was a high school student because we did This over our summer program where we help kids [00:38:00] to try and get credit recovery, right? But we do it in a way that gives scaffolds to MLs. So it’s not just your regular, your regular recovery type route. But within that, we had them start to do these cultural pathways.

And one that came to mind was this girl’s story about her family. In, in, in a certain country where they were at war and didn’t know whether they were going to be bombed one day or the next, and a bomb was hidden within a bear, if I remember right, stuffed animal, and was given to the family and they didn’t know that, and it went off, and luckily this girl Was not affected, but her family members were affected and just to hear her talk about that story and then we wonder knowing that story and then looking at her and then in my own mind thinking, wow, she made it to school today and wants to sit and listen and take in [00:39:00] whatever an adult is willing to share with her and that’s the kind of hope that I get of teachers being able to now look at and go, I’m just glad Mandi’s here today.

Because I know where she came from. I know some things that are going on and I’m just glad she’s here and I’m going to do everything possible to make her day a good one and in hopes that she can retain some things and learn some things. But that’s one that comes to my mind. 

Justin Hewett: I appreciate you sharing that.

And I, and you had mentioned how, The assistant superintendent that you work with had even asked about it. And I just, I think that’s a really interesting thing. And it’s important because ultimately within our districts, every district has a culture to it. And we have ways that things have been done.

And we have ways that things need to be done as we move forward and as we work to serve our multilingual students. And one of the best ways that we can do that and help build awareness is let our different leaders and administrators and board members and whoever it might [00:40:00] be, get to know our students better.

And being able to capture their stories this way and be able to share that story in a way that really resonates, I think that’s how we drive real change. That’s how we drive change in a district change in a building change in a classroom and show these different leaders, who these students are and what they need, right?

Because when you listen to a student, either it’s them telling their story or them talking about the weather or whatever it might be, the water cycle, as you mentioned, Dave, when students are talking through and they’re telling their story and they’re using their language as a teacher, as an educator, you can hear the language they are bringing and you can hear what they’re missing.

And it allows you to now understand what this student needs from you and how to help them. Cross that bridge, get to the next spot, right? Where then we’ll level up again and we’ll continue to just go on this journey. And that’s the value of feedback. It’s the value of formative assessment. It’s a value of getting that [00:41:00] insight.

David Gomez: Yeah. Justin, you just spurred another idea in my mind, just as we’re talking today. And you guys know that this is what I do. I can’t stop thinking about ideas. And one that came to mind is why are we not doing this in our own companies? You know what I’m going to do tomorrow? I’m going to have our staff here in EdEquity do the cultural pathway if we can, so I can get to know them as people and as individuals in this department, but why couldn’t we do that with staff at schools?

Why couldn’t the principal, the admin start to pull out these cultural pathways and start to understand that you’ve got differences in your building? That you don’t even know about that could become really powerful unifiers. You should do this in flashlight. I should 

Justin Hewett: do this in flashlight. 

David Gomez: Person go through this so that you as the CEO or others can know about their employees.[00:42:00] 

Justin Hewett: I love it, Dave. And it’s interesting. We actually do something like this on our all hands meeting that we call GOAT. It’s the greatest of all time meeting. But at the end of it, we’ll usually have somebody share about who they are, where they come from, tell a little bit of their story.

But I’m thinking like it’d be fun for them to actually do it through flashlight, and get that much more experience, navigating the product and doing some of that stuff and capturing. And then 

David Gomez: it’s recorded. It’s recorded and then you turn that into you get people then making connections, not feedback, but the feedback is then turned into connections.

Maybe there’s a button that you put on there that says click connect and you put your connector down there. Now we’re launching into something totally different, but that is a freaking cool idea. 

Justin Hewett: I love it. I love it. Mandi, what do you got for us? 

Mandi Morris: I love at the beginning of this conversation, Justin, you were talking about in the beginning of Flashlight 360, it was about assets.

It was about what do students bring [00:43:00] and sitting here and listening to the conversation, thinking about students telling their stories. And I thought it really just adds value to each student who is asked to sit and tell their story. It brings dignity to their story and it makes them believe I am bringing an asset to this.

Place I have something to offer and that’s a beautiful way of using flashlight 360. It really is so aligned with the mission of what we are trying to do. And I think it’s an incredible way of bringing joy to the students experience of learning, which does not always feel joyful when you’re a language learner and a lot of your day can feel like there are so many things that I can’t do.

So I love that idea of a teacher’s going to listen to this is going to validate myself. story. Here’s an asset. This experience I’m bringing. I just think it’s such a great way of thinking about our students and building that empathy and the adults in the building. 

David Gomez: Yeah, Mandi, what you’re [00:44:00] talking about is a book that I’ve read and I’m reading.

It’s called Belonging Through a Culture of Dignity, right? You just hit it right on the head. It is that concept of dignity, right? And everybody needs that, comes with that, deserves that. So how do we create it? I think We’ve talked about many ways you can do that today. 

Justin Hewett: Thanks for mentioning that, but who’s the author of that, Dave?

David Gomez: That’s Floyd Cobb, C O B B, and John Crownapple, spelled with a K. And it’s just something, keys to successful equity implementation. 

Justin Hewett: Okay. I want to shift gears here for a second, Dave, I want to ask you this, you look at things a little differently than, than some educators, some, maybe our listeners have heard some of that today.

I would imagine they have and I’ve enjoyed it. And it’s interesting to me because I feel like you bring a different perspective, maybe than some educators. I guess everybody brings a different perspective to some degree, right? Everyone has their own perspective. But if you could get on your [00:45:00] pulpit, Dave, in your soapbox, and you could share an idea about educators have this wrong.

They’re thinking about it this way, and this is the way that they should think about it. What would that one thing be? 

David Gomez: Tough question, Justin, but I think the thing that jumped to my mind is this testing. We just do too much of it. We do too much testing, right? I don’t know why we feel like we need to test test, test, right?

Instead of looking at how we learn in life and then capitalizing on the creative side of teachers, bringing that art back into teaching, because teaching is an art. And I believe that all the way through. It is an art and I love doing drawings. I do portraits, colored pencils. And to me, it’s similar to that.

It’s an art and sometimes. Through initiatives, through testing [00:46:00] requirements and all that we’ve taken the art out of teaching and I’d like to see it come back when I was in park city, a lot of great families up there. A lot of great people had money to give to the school. And so we created this place and it’s.

Nothing new, but we call it the makerspace. Okay, you’ve heard of those makerspaces and we did a play every year and in the makerspace class, kids would come and we just have recycled stuff there that they could take and just create with. No matter what they created with. And so that spurred down a group that met after school to take cardboard and other kinds of stuff to make the backdrops for our plays that we had in Park City.

That’s the art of teaching right there. Where has that gone? We’ve lost that bit. And I would love for us to get back to that concept of let’s [00:47:00] at some point, let kids be creative and let them use their minds, let them win, let them lose, let them understand the differences, learn from them. And that would be my.

One big thing, but I don’t know if we’re ever going to get back to that. I really don’t because we’ve got so many initiatives that just push, push accountability, which I realized there has to be accountability. I’m not saying that, but I think we’ve swung too far the other way. So that. That’s one thing that comes to mind.

Justin. 

Mandi Morris: Dave, I’m just curious to hear your perspective on, I feel like we’re hearing more about teachers coming to the classroom who don’t have expertise in the content that they’re teaching or are coming in later in life, new to the classroom or aren’t coming from those traditional routes. And I’m hearing more about, no, we need more experiences that are plug and play because our teachers don’t have the expertise to make.

Autonomous decisions about what should be happening in the classroom. [00:48:00] I wonder if you see any correlation between teachers as a profession where we find a lot of professionalism and importance and value in the work that we’re doing, that we need to have that autonomy, or The counter that no teachers really need the box to teach within because they need those explicit supports.

David Gomez: Nobody wants to operate within a box. I don’t think so. And I think if you do, then you should probably find another profession. That’s my own opinion. If I were to become a principal again, which I have thought of and would love to go back and do, I’m just getting too old to do it. I would want teachers that, that want to break out of that box and then want to make mistakes.

And try it again. That, that’s the biggest thing, right? Is make mistakes, allow them to make mistakes, know that they’re going to, that none of us are perfect. But, we gotta allow, so no, I think we do want to allow teachers to have that autonomy and think for [00:49:00] themselves and try new things and give them the support the training, but then allow them to try some things in their classroom.

I miss those days back when I was a fourth grade teacher. Somebody gave me a puppet they had built. stage, right? The kids go behind. It was full on at curtains and everything. It was awesome. They said, do you want it? And I said, yeah, I want it. Brought it in my classroom. And so we just had a field day with that.

We’d learn stuff and then they’d make a puppet show about it. And I had no parameters. It was just make a puppet show and it was amazing. Kids would do it at that time. I had kids that couldn’t speak English, so they did in Spanish. Didn’t matter, but they were expecting themselves. They were learning. They were showing me that they learned and it was that kind of creativity in the art of teaching that I miss.

And my principal didn’t come and say, oh, we can’t do that. That’s not in the curriculum. If I hear those things one more time, I know they have their [00:50:00] purpose. People are going to hate me for saying this, but come on, we got to get back to that opportunity, giving teachers some opportunity to progress, right?

And learn and do some fun things. 

Justin Hewett: Awesome. Dave, what a pleasure to be able to have you here on, on the ML Chat Podcast. You’ve been a great friend for me and a mentor for me, but also for Flashlight and It’s been really fun working together and serving your students in the Granite School District.

It’s really been fun for us to see the impact you’re having in your district and the work that you’re doing. I think it’s really remarkable some of the changes that you’ve been able to implement in such a short amount of time. You’ve been in that role now for just a few years and yet, You’ve really been shifting culture and putting new systems and processes in that allow you guys to serve your students in a better way, right?

And really drive achievement. So it’s been really fun to see. Thanks for coming on here and telling us a little bit more about your story, [00:51:00] finding out what our connection is. This has been fun, man. 

David Gomez: It’s been fun, Justin. We have a unique story that one that we’ll never forget. And it just goes to show how those stories can make connections and change people’s lives, right?

That’s what we’re. Talking about here, but the other thing I was going to say, if people want to reach out to me and I’m happy to help folks, it’s a tough journey out there. Just look up grand school district and get my contact info. And I’m happy to help anyone who needs. Help as long as we laugh and enjoy our conversations and can make connections.

I’m happy to help anyone who needs it. 

Justin Hewett: I love that. And maybe as a parting gift, to our listeners, if you could go back and you were at the early stage of your career, maybe you’re just sitting down with somebody there. They’re a first year teacher. They just finished their first year. They’re overwhelmed.

They’re thinking about going back for this next school year. And they’re going, Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can do that again. What would you tell them? [00:52:00] What advice would you give him? What kind of pep talk would you give him? What would you say Dave? 

David Gomez: Stop staying in your buildings past four. Come on.

I know people are cringing by me saying that, but just don’t have a life outside of school. Number one, get some things you enjoy. Okay? Because it can become a job to people when it really needs to become a passion. And I, and that’s what I would say if I could go back and go, Hey, you’re not going to solve all the problems in one day or in a year.

And guys, after the second or third year, right? In that time, you start to realize this is a pretty fun gig. This is great, man. And here’s the other thing I wished I had known back then too, is that the energy and the love that kids give you, yes, even the little wonderfuls, I was going to say something, but I remembered the rules of the podcast, but even those wonderful little buggers, [00:53:00] even they, give you that energy and love that you are not going to get any other place.

You’re not going to get it in any other job except for that one. I walk in this building, nobody cares, and I walk in the district office. When I was in my building, As a principal or even as a teacher, I was a rock star. I walked in there, Mr. Gomez, Mr. Gomez, it was so great. I was a rock star. They love you.

They think you’re the greatest thing on earth. So don’t ever lose that. And don’t ever think that I just got to get away from here because nine times out of 10 people that have left miss that. That’s what they miss. They miss the energy of the kids. The love of the kids, the things that they bring, and just the funny and weird things you get to go through in a day’s time.

That’s what I think I would share with people. 

Justin Hewett: Dave, thank you for being here. Thanks for being a guest on the [00:54:00] ML Chat Podcast. Thanks everybody. 

David Gomez: See ya.