S6:E12- Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Small Towns with Amy Jacobson

You are listening to the Growing Small Towns Show, a podcast dedicated to supporting you, the person who really cares about the future of your small town. We believe when people get better, everything gets better, and our episodes offer the ideas and actions that prioritize people and small communities. Thank you for listening. We're so glad you're here. Our guest on today's episode is Amy Jacobson. Amy is the director of the Special Education Resident Program at the University of North Dakota here in our great state of North Dakota. Amy, we do shout out Rikka on the episode, but we'll shout her out here as well. Amy, this topic was recommended to me by our mutual friend Rikka. Rikka Brandon's been on our podcast before. She is a powerhouse recruiter. So we encourage you, we'll make sure we link to Rikka's episode in the show notes because Rikka was, she's been with us before. But basically Rikka reached out to me and she was like, Amy's doing really cool things to approach the recruitment and retention of teachers, specifically special education teachers in rural communities. She's like, I just feel like there's threads for your audience. And she was absolutely right. So Amy joins me to talk about this very specific program to recruit special education teachers. But I think, like we talked about it, and it's just like, they're having success with this program in rural places, small communities. And so I think if nothing else, hearing, and obviously this is coming from the perspective of higher education, right? If you're listening to this and you're like, what does it have to do with me? I just, I really encourage you, and Amy shares a few great ideas. I think it's just, we all need to think outside of the box if we have specific industries or specific either licensures or, you know, kinds of professionals that we have a hard time recruiting and retaining. And I just think the way this program is layered is something that all of us should be thinking about because it's definitely embedding these candidates into their community and their school in a different way that would just, that just enhances the likelihood that they'll stay. So without further ado, please enjoy this conversation about rural recruitment of special education teachers with our friend Amy Jacobson. Hey Amy, welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for having me.

So why don't we just launch right into it? Tell, uh, tell us and our listeners a bit about the program that, that you're a part of that you're seeing so much success with. And then again, just for our listeners, um, the program you're about to tell us about only exists in North Dakota.

Correct. Correct.

At least that you have like this much insight about.

Yes, there could be similar programs elsewhere, but the one I'm talking about is specific. Yeah.

So everybody that is listening to this in a North Dakota rural community, like, really listen up. And then we will make sure that we offer some thoughts about what— if there's anybody listening to this that's not in North Dakota, like, what can they do? What's the relevance for them and their communities to kind of create this talent pipeline that this program's allowed you to do. So please, yeah, tell us a bit about the program.

Okay, so we are run through the University of North Dakota, which is in Grand Forks, North Dakota, for those of you not in our state. And there's kind of two different arms to what I'm going to be talking about here today. So the first one is, it's called the Resident Teacher Program, the Special Education Resident Teacher Program. So all of this is, these two programs I'm going to talk about today involve recruiting people to be special education teachers in our state because there's a critical shortage and has been a shortage of special education teachers for years and years. So the first program where we kind of started, we started this in 1997, and it's called the Special Education Resident Teacher Program. And so candidates go to grad school full-time, and then they teach in the public school full-time. And we have a partnership between the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction as well as school districts across the state of North Dakota. So DPI and also the school districts, they provide funding, and then the Resident Teacher Program, part of their tuition is paid for, a big part of their tuition, graduate tuition, and then the funding also supports my job as the director of the program, and then my colleague Bridget Campoverde, her job, or her salary and benefits, because she is their building, or the UND resident teacher mentor. Okay. So what the resident teacher program is, it's like I said, candidates go to grad school full-time and then they teach in the public school full-time. They do a year-long internship. They are partnered with a special education teacher, a veteran teacher in the building. So they get that layered mentorship from both a building mentor and then Bridget from UND. They do everything that a special education teacher does, and it's kind of a gradual release program. So, you know, at the beginning of the year they do a lot of observations. There's a lot of mentoring coaching up front, and then as the year progresses, they get more and more independent. And so by the time they get to the end of the school year, they've basically seen almost everything they're going to see as a special education teacher, and they've had that layered mentorship to get them to that point. And like I mentioned, they go to grad school full-time too. So our grad program is 100% online, fully asynchronous. So they usually enroll in one or two or so grad classes per semester. And so when they get done with that year-long internship, soon after, if not right after, then they're a fully licensed master-level special education teacher. And like I said, we have partnerships with school districts and special education units. We're— that's kind of how our state is structured because we're such a rural state. So we— there's a lot of units where there's a lot of smaller schools that fit their special education services under one director, one special education director. The larger schools, they run special ed, you, you know, through their larger schools. So we have partnerships with schools across the state of North Dakota. Um, our, our maximum number of students that we can take are 20. So every year, um, that's what our budget allows. So, um, yeah, we are max is 20, and then we start every— like, this is kind of the time of the year where our applications were due March 15th, we interviewed a couple weeks ago, and now we're in the placement process. So we're working on placing the resident teachers in all these different schools across the state.

So do you always have 20 students?

You know, we always recruit. That 20 is our maximum, and I've never been below 20.

Okay, that's good. I mean, that's good. Yeah, if you're funded to that, it's great that you have that many people.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm right now, probably for next year, I'm right at about 18 or 19, so I'm still looking for a few more for next year. And since it is a graduate program, All the criteria is they need to have an undergraduate degree completed, and it doesn't matter what field it is in. It doesn't have to be in education, so it could be in business, it could be in art. You know, we have lots of different people with lots of different backgrounds, so as long as they have an undergrad degree completed, they can apply to the Resident Teacher Program. Oftentimes candidates we get are working as paraeducators already, not all the time, right? Sometimes they've been, you know, substitute teachers, sometimes they're coming out of a completely different field. So it's just a really good opportunity for people who have a completed 4-year your undergrad degree to get into the field of special education if they're interested in doing that.

Yeah. So do you have any stats on this? I didn't, I didn't ask you to prepare this, but like, is— can you even ballpark the number of people that maybe weren't in education that went through this program? I mean, and since 1997, that's a lot of students to think through. But because I think, I think the thing is that, um, our friend Rika, who's been on the, the show before, was the person that connected me to you, right? Um, and as you and I had our visit kind of before the recording. I just think this is— I— the reason this is so important, I wanted to bring you on, is because I think rural communities are always looking for ways to upskill or to offer what I would consider upskilling opportunities, right? Just so people can find either a new career path or, or elevate within their career path if they're already in education. And I just don't— this wasn't something that I knew existed. Now granted, I'm not in the school system, right? But it's also just recognizing, like, I have a 4-year degree, I don't want to teach special education. But if, if there were a person— and I think that's the other thing too, people find their way into this or their interest in it through completely sometimes unique paths, right? I mean, it's just sometimes it's honestly, it's, it's such a wide field, special education, like, as far as where and how you might interact with it. It's just kind of— I just think this is kind of fascinating. So back to that question, any idea, like, ballpark-wise?

Yeah, so, okay, so like you mentioned, we've been around since 1997, and so we've trained roughly 600 special education teachers over that time frame.

That's incredible.

It is, it's pretty amazing. And our retention in the state of North Dakota is pretty high. You know, we're not 100%, but we're pretty high up there because they really get that solid education and mentoring and start to their career in special education. So the retention is a lot better than, you know, if they just like, oh, you have a degree and just best of luck going out to the field, because special education is a really, really challenging career. So when we first started out, you had to have— all the candidates had to have an undergrad degree in education. But then as things changed in our state, our state changed licensure criteria, and I don't remember what year they changed it, but they went from, in order to be a special ed teacher, you you had to either have a double major in, say, like elementary ed and special ed, or music education and special education, or like in my case, I had an elementary ed degree and then I got my master's degree in special ed. So you had to either have a double major or an undergrad degree in education and then a master's degree in special ed. So again, I can't remember, it's been a while now since the state changed licensure criteria, but what they did is they went from requiring an undergrad degree in education to not requiring that undergrad degree in education. So now, because we're a master's level program, we can take people with any degree. So to answer your question, initially everybody had an undergrad degree in education, but now I would say for the last at least 10 years, maybe, you know, right around 10, maybe more. I'm— everything to me is 5 to 8 to 10 years ago now.

So yeah, right. I have a— it's terrible. I have a terrible Right. Yeah, my brain does not calculate time well. Everything is 5 years ago. And exactly.

Yeah, so I think, uh, yep, so right around that, somewhere in there. But now I would say probably 75 to 85% of our resident teachers aren't— don't have an undergrad degree in education. It's very rare that actually we get somebody with an undergrad degree.

That's, that's so interesting to me. So the other thing I'm wondering is, how are these How are these individuals finding out about this program?

Yeah, it's a variety of things. Yeah, yeah, it's hard.

Like, if somebody is listening to this and they know somebody that, you know, like this, that, that literally could happen in this situation, right? So love it.

So yeah, so what I do every year is I do a real heavy recruiting campaign, and this is coming from a teacher, so I'm not like a recruiter or a marketer. Um, but what I do is I push out emails to all of the, um, building administrators administrators throughout the state. So oftentimes they might say, "Oh, I have a paraeducator," or, "Oh, my wife," or, "Oh, my cousin's daughter," you know, right? That's one way to do it. Historically, I've used social media. I don't know if we've gotten a ton through social media. I've been on the radio before, I've been on the North Dakota Today show before, and it's really hard to say how, you know, how many candidates we get through that, and sometimes like they might, like for example, there's a gal who just moved back to state from, I believe it was Nevada, and she is working in a school district as a para. And so one of the teachers in her school said, hey, you should come and do it, right? So, you know, so a lot of times they're working as paraeducators, but not always. So there's just a variety of different ways that people can hear about us. But it is a lot of times, sometimes, like another gal who applied for next year, she just went on to our website And she's just like, oh, I didn't even know about this. So, and that person does have an undergrad degree in education, and so she was looking for a master's program and is like, oh cool, this is, this is an opportunity. So she decided to do it.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's interesting to me too because I would guess that, um, obviously once a school enrolls a person and takes them through this process, and as long as it went well, which I'm, I'm assuming for the most part it does, then that school just becomes— that school is in the know differently. So I think Also, for anybody listening to this, if you're not sure and you're in North Dakota, if you're not sure if your school has connected to this resource, like, get on the phone and call Amy and just make sure, like, make sure your school knows about it, right?

Yeah, because it's a, it's real, it's like, it's not easy to find people, you know. I'm not saying, oh, it's easy, you know, just look. But there are, like, if, like, I work with some directors who work in pretty rural schools and they manage to find somebody year and year and year after year after year, and it's because they're looking in different places. So yeah, if you look in different places, you know, you can often find someone. The one other— the other arm to this program is for those of people who don't have an earned undergrad degree.

Yeah, this is so interesting too.

Yes, yeah, yeah. So the Resident Teacher Program, like I said, is a master's level program. We've been around since 1997. We train people to be special education teachers. Our mantra is we recruit, train, and retain teachers in the state of North Dakota. And if you're in a rural school and if you check that box for like, oh, I have an undergrad degree earned, I want a rural community— I should say, if you're in a rural community, you have an undergrad degree earned, and you're interested in it, what I do then is I work with the school districts to see if they can support a resident teacher. So I work to find that placement for them. But now if there's people out there who don't have a completed undergrad degree, we have another option, and we built this option like around 2020, because I was getting calls from people who wanted to be in the Resident Teacher Program. So we'd have these conversations, and then I'd say, well, what is your undergrad degree in? Well, I don't have one. So then we created a mechanism which is a feeder into the Resident Teacher Program. And this is a mouthful, but essentially it's an accelerated bachelor's program that leads right into the Master of Education. And what's really interesting about this program is that once candidates get 60 credits into their undergrad degree, then they can apply to the master's program and be dually enrolled in both. And 12 graduate credits, they can start taking those at— after, you know, at that midway point at 60 credits, and they can double count 12 graduate credits for their undergrad degree and their master's degree. So by the time they graduate with their bachelor's degree, they're already about 40% of the way done with their master's degree. So That's a really good program and it works for everybody. So it works if people haven't taken any classes, so they have zero credits earned, all the way up to about 90 credits. And I've had people that have done both. And so oftentimes, again, these candidates often are paraeducators, and I kind of get them the same way. I, you know, I advertise or I send messages and word of mouth, um, those types of things. Oftentimes they're paraeducators. They don't need to be. We have a handful of current UND students who, you know, came to UND and then they found this program and they transferred into our program. But it's really slick because you can finish a master's degree in— a bachelor's and a master's degree in special education as you can in about the same time frame as you could finish a standalone 4-year bachelor degree in special education. So it's really— and I don't want the word accelerated to scare people. A lot of people love that word because they want to finish fast, and other people get scared of it because they think, well, I have a family and I have a job and how I can't go so fast. The accelerated piece really comes in at those 12 shared credits, right?

So yeah, the fact that you're taking, taking things that actually apply towards both degrees, correct, at the same time. Yeah, yeah, that's, it's really special. Like, did you figure who figured that out?

Well, I, I kind of, I, I kind of did, but I had to have help at the School of Graduate Studies at UND because I was getting these people saying I want to be a resident teacher and then oh, but I only have 43 credits earned, or I want to be a resident teacher but I have no credits earned. And so I started working at the School of Graduate Studies and my chair at the time, and I was like, well, this is what I want. I want a kind of barrier-free undergraduate, undergraduate degree. So, you know, they didn't have to apply to like teacher education programs and they didn't have to student teach, you know, because they get the field experience, the internship at the graduate level, and that's where the licensure piece comes. Yeah, I wanted a barrier-free undergrad degree. And so with those ideas in mind and then partnering with the School of Graduate Studies and then working with my chair at the time, this is what came out of it. And like I said, it's a mouthful. The current program is currently called the Accelerated Bachelor of General Studies and Master of Education in Special Education. That's a mouthful, but essentially it means you get two degrees in an accelerated time frame, and then at the end, so your last semesters, then when you fully graduate with your bachelor's degree and you're fully matriculated— that's the word we use in grad school— when you're fully matriculated into the master's program, then that's when these candidates can be a resident teacher. So it's a feeder into that resident teacher program that I was talking about at first.

The Growing Small Towns show is recorded locally at the Growing Small Towns podcast studio located in Oakes, North Dakota. It's produced by Pheasant Canteen Studio in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with marketing support from Cassidy Johnson. Paula Jensen and Canyon City, Colorado. Our intro music was created and produced exclusively for Growing Small Towns by James Bergman, singer and songwriter from Fargo, North Dakota. Local and small, it's what we support and it's who we love. Get your community a shout out on the podcast. Call 701-526- 203-3337 and share your small town success that you just don't feel is being celebrated quite enough and let us shout you out. You can also share your biggest people challenge and we'll dedicate an episode to offering ideas to help. Hell, you can basically tell us anything and we'll do what we can to answer. We can't wait to hear from you. Right, right. Um, I just— was this modeled— and you maybe— I mean, maybe that— maybe you don't know. I don't know, like, when this started in 1997, was there a model that the folks at UND that put this together were looking at, or was it just like, again, kind of innovation from within the room? Like, we have a problem, we don't have enough people coming into the program, we're the department that's supposed to recruit them, we don't know where to find them, we don't know how to act, you know? Was it just like, we're gonna solve a problem? Because this is really unique. And again, I just think, I think about all the people that I think about, and in small communities like ours, um, a lot of times there's that challenge of one spouse comes for a job, or is, you know, there's a great job that they get, and then there's a trailing spouse. And it's one of those things that I don't know that a lot of people would even know to think about, especially if you, if you did go to school and it wasn't for education, right? The idea of making this shift might seem weird, but. But I also think that it's not impossible to imagine that that could happen, right? So I just think it's an avenue. It's an avenue for, for additional, um, education, additional, like, professional placements. And then the big goal, you know, you're talking about retention. We're talking about retention for our communities, not just retaining them in a school system, but they— we need to keep them in our towns a lot of times.

So yeah, I know.

Yeah.

And so I get it. And it's like we want people to live in our small town communities and, you know, have the schools grow not only just with teachers, but like people to have kids. And then so they're in the schools.

So everything just absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. The cornerstone of a small town. So.

Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So back to that question of just like, was it just like a problem that they decided to solve and they did it this creatively because. Wow.

Yeah. So I wasn't there. I was in college myself at the time, but I did hear— so the gal who started the program at UND, her name was Dr. Lynn Chalmers. And she partnered with Linda Jenkins, who was the special education director of Grand Forks Public Schools at the time. So, so it was, to answer your questions, it was yes to both things. So there were two existing resident teacher programs at UND already that had started just years prior to 1997. So one was in elementary education, so that, that was a partnership between Grand Forks Public Schools and UND, and they had resident teachers at the elementary level. So all these candidates had to have an undergrad degree in elementary ed already, and then they applied to this special program. And I can't remember how many candidates they could have every year, but they could be resident teachers in Grand Forks Public Schools. And Grand Forks Public Schools hired a mentor that was themselves for these, these resident teachers. And so they had a mentor from Grand Forks Public Schools but then also kind of partnered with UND. So their program looked a little bit different. And then there was also a middle school program very similar to the elementary program. So they were specific to Grand Forks Public Schools. There was a very tight partnership between Grand Forks Public Schools and UND. Now funding issues popped up and neither one of those programs are in existence anymore, but they, they started it at UND. So like I said, back in 1997, the flood in Grand Forks was, you know, just, you know, had just had happened. And so Lynn and Linda were meeting and they're like, let's start this. So it started with a partnership with Grand Forks and UND specifically, and it's really changed over the years. So it started at a 1-year program, then it went to a 2-year program, and now we're down to a 1-year program again. And then just throughout, you know, throughout the years, more and more partnerships with schools grew. So every year we have new partnerships with schools that we haven't had previously. And so it was a creative solution to try to get special education teachers out there And then they based it on two existing programs at UND.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Love that. Okay. Yeah. So, so for those that are listening to this that maybe don't have this program, what, what would you, what would you tell them? So the, the people that are listening to this oftentimes are, you know, people in either community development, sometimes they're people that have businesses in small towns, but kind of usually the thread, the through line through everyone is that they just, they live in a small town and they like are purpose-driven activated people. Right. Right. And so they're looking for energy, you know, energy and inspiration, motivation, ideas to make their communities better. I think, um, teacher recruiting in general is a challenge. It's a challenge for rural schools. Yeah. Um, and as, you know, as we already alluded to it, it's like that's a really big part of the strength of a town is the strength of its school. Mm-hmm. So if, if somebody's listening to this and they don't have this exact program, what, what ideas might you have for them? To think differently about how to recruit teachers?

Right. So there are programs in— and we actually have this in North Dakota too now. We're just in our— I don't remember what year we are in, but they call them apprenticeship programs through the Department of Labor. So the Department of Labor, states have applied for allowing teachers to be considered apprentices. And so So there's— and we're not the only state that does this. I can't remember. We modeled our program after another state, but there's a few different states that have apprenticeship programs. Now apprenticeship programs are similar but also different than the resident teacher program. We don't have one at UND, so I don't have deep specifics, but the state required certain criteria. But there's different ways that, you know, they, they can help. Different states or different entities can help recruit and really fund a way a teacher gets trained and then put, put the contract in there. So it's like, we'll help you get trained, we'll place you in school, we'll give you support, but then you have to stick around and teach for us for a certain amount of years, right? There's, there's— in other states they do have some programs that are similar, you know, different than ours but similar. Um, so I would say that would be one thing if, if people are outside of the state of North Dakota. And are really interested in like, oh, my school really has a need for— and it doesn't necessarily just have to be special ed teachers, it could be any teachers, you know, look, apprenticeship programs for teachers. So that's what I've really seen too, and that's when I talk to candidates, it's really about funding, you know.

Yes, yeah, funding.

So assistance with, you know, their tuition, um, maybe a little bit of, um, living money when they're going to school, you know. So if states or communities or whatever that might be could help with that piece of it. That really does help with recruiting efforts. Another thing that is, is kind of important is to look at high school students. So if you have high school students who are already in your community and they're not students who have big dreams to be like, oh, I want to move to New York City, you know, and things like that. So if you— if there are people who are interested in staying in your community, there's often dual credit courses in education where they can start chipping away at the criteria to get an undergrad degree in education. And then somehow you could build a partnership with them like, oh, if you get your degree, you know, we'll help you fund your degree. And if you could stick around here and come back to our school to be a teacher when you're done, maybe work as a paraeducator or, you know, a tutor or something along that way. But really kind of entice it for, for students because that's kind of, again, that's not the only thing, but that's one thing I often hear is the cost of getting a degree.

Absolutely. Well, and I'll just say that here in our community, our, and this would be a tip or an idea for our local economic development folks that might be listening. Not here in Oaks, but anybody listening that has economic development. Our local economic development has a business match sponsorship, so they will contribute— they will match up to $2,500 of investment from an employer. Oh, towards— for tuition. And, and, and that's it. It's just the agreement is between the economic development group and the emp— the employer, and it's on the employer to design the program. Of, you know, by which this person has— like, so you said if it's you have to work for us for 2 years, 5 years, like whatever parameters you set. So that's, I think, a flexible way that local economic developers can support businesses by even just matching. So it's paired investment, right? Not the whole burden is on any one party. Um, and that's a really cool way to like gauge interest of young people because tuition is expensive. Um, and these, these jobs that require the education, and in our case this $2,500 could go towards the trades as well, you know, like, so not just teachers but kind of all jobs. If, if they need a specific set of education, they have to go for so much time. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's those creative ways. And I think I love the reminder to look at in your high school, gauge the interest for this with the students that are already there, and then what are the ways that we can get them actively, um, experimenting with what it would actually feel like. Give them that real-world experience as soon as possible, right? Because that's the thing too, like, you could go to school for a couple of years to be an educator, and if you— none of that is actually experiencing the classroom, it could be until you're at the end of your degree before you realize that it's not— that's not really a good fit for you, right? So also just like reminding all of us, like, all of us as we're thinking about how to fill positions, how do we get them actively engaged in it sooner?

Right, right. And then to stick around once they've—

exactly—

to the point where they can do the job. Because I think that's what you do is that attrition piece of it is like you want to keep them, you know. So, and that's where I think the two programs that I'm talking about is really good because it gives that year of experience with that really intensive mentoring. So although you can't experience every single solitary thing, you know, out there, but of course, going through a whole year with someone who knows what they're doing and that support, that layered support. So by the time you finish and you're ready for your first job, you've really had that experience, so you feel more comfortable going in, you feel more secure in yourself and your decisions, and then you can stick around longer. So I think that's another piece of it too. It's not only the recruiting piece of it, but it's like to make those people feel comfortable, like confident, so they're going to stick around for years to come.

Yeah, the, the mentorship is really a special layer, I think, to what, to what you guys have developed.

Um, right. Yes. So that's what I was—

trusted relationship.

Yeah, yeah. Because I say to them, like, the benefits— the Resident Teacher Program and the, the Accelerator Program, they benefit everybody, right? So they benefit the student because they get that year's worth of experience. That layer, that may— that layered mentorship is invaluable. You can't even put a price tag on that, right? They get a tuition, you know, about half of their tuition covered, and then they also get paid. So they get paid for their year-long internship. So those are the benefits to the student. And that layered mentorship, I can't stress that enough. Then schools, they get someone else, they get new energy, somebody young, not always, not, not always young, but new, new, new excited energy.

Yep, it's not right.

All ages, all ages that do this. But, and they get, they're learning at UND and they're coming in with the ideas that they've just learned, the new evidence-based ideas that they're learning in class, and they can bring them into school. So it's another person in the building, it's new ideas, you know, um, so the schools benefit from it. And it doesn't cost a school as much money to hire a resident teacher as it does a first-year teacher. So, you know, they get this person for a year where it's costing them some money but not as a full-year teacher. So then that also is kind of beneficial for them too. So it really does benefit, and it benefits the community because now you have teachers in your, in your school who are going to stick around for years to come.

So, well, and I also just think too, we'd be remiss not to just point out the fact that like it, it can be a challenge for families that have students with whatever the, whatever the array of potential disabilities or challenges, learning challenges that they might have, right, that would require or trigger an IEP or trigger the need for special Special Education Services. The, the— I think that belief that only city centers have the highest quality of services, like, that's something that this program also helps to kind of level out in an important way, right? I think for, for all of us, again, we want, um, we want students to get the best education and best experience that can get, and that's all abilities. It's not— so I think having strong educators in special education is good for for the community, for the families that their kids are accessing those services. Absolutely.

And I feel like in every teacher, it doesn't matter if you're a kindergarten teacher or a high school math teacher, every, every gen ed teacher has students with disabilities within their classrooms.

Absolutely.

Because inclusion is just so important.

And so it's a huge deal. Yeah.

So it's like it benefits everybody in the community.

Oh, 100%. And I just, I think, yeah, that's— I And that too, like, it wasn't necessarily that I had a child that accesses those services, but I worked at an organization where my eyes were completely opened to the, to the range. It was a nonprofit. Um, I, well, I guess you would know it. I worked for the Ann Carlson Center.

Oh, sure.

Um, and, and that was, I, I had no prior experience, you know, I was like an admin function. Um, I always joke I was just overhead, like, but that was the job that I had. And just being in and around that facility, like everything It was so— it was so eye-opening.

Right, right.

And, and we— and, and the more— and the more people that have any sort of exposure to it, like you said, inclusion is a big deal. It makes our communities better communities. And I would just say, like, full stop on that. That's my opinion, of course. But, um, more inclusion is— to me, I don't understand or see what the downside would ever be, right? You know, for embracing and accepting and, and understanding and working with just more people from all different kinds of backgrounds. So everybody's different. Yeah, yeah. Right. So this is, this is awesome. Thank you so much for just coming on because I, I think you guys have figured something out at U&D that is a problem for a lot of, of places. And yes, it's related specifically to special education teachers, but I think this conversation can just be like, how, how can we take this conversation, take the program that you've built and think about applying it to any, if there's any jobs that you're having a really hard time recruiting, what is a model or a version of this program look like for, for your situation. It's just, it's going to take innovation for us because again, like, these opportunities exist in all of our rural towns and all of our small communities, and sometimes we just need to take it a step further to connect those dots, the partnership between a college and a, and a school system. So it's awesome. I just, I appreciate so much you taking the time to share it with us.

Well, thank you so much for having me. Thanks to Rikita for connecting us.

Yeah, for sure. Big shout out to our friend Rikita. She's fantastic. And, and like per usual, like You know, you can't— you can take the small town out of the girl, but you, you know, like, that's— RICCA is still just such a small town, and the connections too. And so I guess I'll give that reminder to everybody: if, if you meet somebody that you're like, more people need to know that, and small towns are impacted, like, please let us know who they are, because we always want to just— we want to share good people doing good work, um, that small towns can benefit from. And that was certainly you today, Amy. So thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm glad—

I'm always happy to get the word out about this, and we're always looking for candidates. And they're there. We just have to let them know.

I know, absolutely. I hope you get, I hope you get some, um, some hits from, from this episode. That would be really special.

Me too, me too.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

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